October 30, 2014

Halloween Manicure and MoYou London Review

I was so excited to receive my MoYou London stamping plates yesterday! They got here in just 7 days even though they came all the way from London! Beware readers, this is an intense nail art post, so if you don't care about pretty manicures look away now!

I ordered five stamping plates from MoYou London, considered one of the best stamping plate manufactures around, and for good reason! Their plates have unique and beautiful designs, are perfectly etched for a perfect crisp image every time, and even their packaging is top notch!

I ordered a plate from each of MoYou's Bridal, Time Traveler, Gothic, Sci-fi, and Fashionista lines. MoYou offers dozens of plates on different themes and I definitely have my eye on some of their Sailor and Tropical collection plates for next summer. Each plate comes in a themed thick paper sleeve and with the metal covered in the ubiquitous thin blue protective film (which I have removed in these photos). MoYou plates are rectangular and quite a bit larger than the circular Pueen and Bundle Monster plates that I have. They also come with the metal plate affixed to a firm plastic backing so you don't have to worry about sharp metal edges with these plates.

The first plate here is Bridal Collection number 06, which consists of delicate and beautiful lace patterns. I love these designs! The laces are all so unique and pretty and could be used for very different looks. Some look more just like pretty baroque designs and others more like lace fabric. The delicate lines had me worried, but these images all stamped really well and clear.

On the opposite side of the spectrum from delicate lace we have Sci-Fi Collection plate 06, which consists of awesome circuit board and digital looking designs! I am super excited to use this plate for some awesome sci-fi/cyberpunk looking nail art. As you are all aware, I am a girly history lover, but I also am a big fan of Blade Runner and Star Wars, so I am excited about this plate!

Then there is Time Traveler plate Back to the 20's 01! I mean, how was I supposed to resist this flapper worthy stamping plate? Cloche hats, flapper ladies, art deco designs, headbands and even an old car! I can't wait to do some 1920's inspired nail designs with this plate!

This is one of MoYou's newer plates, from their relatively new Gothic Collection. This is plate number 09 and wow! This is the style of plate that MoYou London is known for, large full designs that allow you to choose any part of the continuous image for your manicure. The other Gothic plates were a little less goth and a bit too cutesy for my liking, but then they came out with a few full image plates like this one with "Gothic" (as in actually Gothic, like the architecture) patterns and stained glass and I fell in love! Sadly, unlike the other plates, this one came in a generic sleeve not a themed one. I wonder why that is? Perhaps they ran out of the Gothic Collection sleeves already? I can't wait to try and do a stained glass look manicure with this gorgeous plate!

The last plate I got was Fashionista Collection 08, a plate full of damask/wallpaper style designs. Again, I just had to have this plate as damask prints are my jam. I am excited to use the smaller repeating designs as backgrounds and the larger motifs on top of other designs.

So MoYou London offers two sizes of images on their plates, the standard and then the XL. I opted to go for the standard size because there are three rows of designs instead of the XL's only two. I'm not exactly regretting this decision but I will say the images are quite small, even on my nubby little nails. I think I will be investing in the XL versions of my Bridal and Fashionista plates for sure, and possibly the Sci-Fi plate as well. I really like the designs but though they pass as the right size for my regular nails, they are way too small for my thumb nail so...yeah. That was the only let down of these plates, otherwise they are practically perfect.

For my Halloween inspired manicure I started out with a white to orange gradient using China Glaze White on White and Stoked to be Soaked, and Sally Hansen Triple Shine Play Koi. I added a layer of topcoat to blend the gradient before I stamped on my designs.

I used the Bridal Collection plate 06 for most of my nails

I used the center in focus design in this photo, I really like this design and it doesn't have cut off edges making it look obviously too small on my nail which is good!

I used the corner design here from MoYou London Fashionista Collection plate 08 as another layer on my accent nails

And here is the finished manicure! I still need lots of practice with stamping, I can't wait for my XL stamper to get here because using the tiny konad one is not easy. I find it hard to line up everything straight on my nail apparently! Any flaws you see in the stamping above and below are my fault and not the MoYou plate's, because the plates are flawless and awesome!

If you read this huge nail art post you deserve a cookie because that was a long one! I am obsessed with stamping plates, they create the most awesome look for the most minimum effort! You can purchase MoYou London plate for yourself on their website here, or their Etsy here. On their website they have free shipping to the US if you spend over 15 pounds which is easy to do! The shipping is super fast too as it only took a week for these to get to me. Much faster than my other recent international orders which seem to be in limbo between here and China. Word of warning to nail art enthusiasts, Born Pretty Store has awesome stuff at ridiculously great prices, but the shipping is super slow (but free!). Ah the first world problems of a nail art addict. I hope you are all having a wonderful week leading up to Halloween!

(disclaimer: I bought these plates with my own money and this is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own)

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Hello there! I'm Bianca and here on The Closet Historian I study and recreate vintage fashions-- sketching, pattern drafting, and sewing my way to a vintage inspired wardrobe. I also occasionally attempt knitting, travel as far and wide as I can, and make videos over on YouTube, all while writing a novel on the side.